Rumor: Insider Reveals Truth About 360 Failure Rates

Jacob Metcalf of 8bitjoystick.com has posted an interview with an anonymous Xbox 360 insider who claims to know the real deal about the console’s failure rates.

To those who might be skeptical that the source is legit, Metacalf points out that "a while back I broke the story that Bungie was leaving Microsoft and had all the details a full week before the official PR announcement." With that in mind, take the following with as much salt as you feel is appropriate.

According to the source, any number of things can cause something to go wrong with the "digital backbone" of a 360’s motherboard, resulting in the famous Red Ring of Death. Bad parts, timing problems, misapplied heat sinks and just plain bad parts are just a few of the culprits he names.

The insider goes on to say that some games may actually accelerate the failure process. Games that consume higher bandwidth can make the 360 run hotter, which can put stress on weakened joints. The better the game, the more often it gets played, which only exacerbates the problem.

Having covered why 360s fail, it’s time to ask the big question: just what is that failure rate?

It’s around 30%, and all will probably fail early. This quarter they are expecting 1 M failures, most of those Xenons. Some of those are repeat failures. Life expectancy is all over the map because the design has very little margin for most of the important parameters. That means it’s not a fault tolerant design. So a good unit may last a couple of years, while a bad unit can fail in hours. I have a launch unit and have not had a single problem with it. And it’s used a lot. But I don’t know anyone else with a 360 that hasn’t broken, except you now. There’s no way to tell when yours might die. But the cooler you can keep it, the longer it will probably last. So stand it up, keep it in free air, etc. :Note : Xenon was the code name for the first Xbox 360 mother board.

The source, who says that he left Microsoft some time ago, explains his motivation for revealing the 360s dirty secrets thusly:

I have always been in a position to stand up for the customer. MS stopped me from doing that. They need to pay the price now. If you guys won’t get together and make that happen, you have no hope for the future with them. It’s not my fight, but I am here fighting. You decide what you want to do. And then do it!